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Not that I approve of Israel's bombing of their own citizens(who happen to not have the right to free travel, economic independence, the vote, or other important aspects we might consider important to a self-declared modern liberal democracy).

But it would be silly to think that only Israel is making enemies pointlessly, as far as middle east politics is concerned.

"Not that I approve of Israel's bombing of their own citizens" - Israel never bombed their own citizens, you probably mean Hamas. In fact, Israel developed high-end technology to protect its citizens from rockets.

"who happen to not have the right to free travel, economic independence, the vote, or other important aspects we might consider important to a self-declared modern liberal democracy" - Israeli citizens has all the rights that Americans have. That includes everything on your list, and it also applie

If Israel weren't so hell-bent on creating more supporters for Hamas and similar organizations, your dreams of disarmament might come true.

Meanwhile, every Palestinian child that dies during these events results in more people signing up to fight the Israeli, the Americans and all other non-Arab, non-Muslim out there.(Yes, it SERIOUSLY doesn't matter who is to blame - the last 3 weeks have done more for the recruitment efforts by Hamas et al, than anything Hamas could do on their own, no matter the validity

No I am not encouraging people to use hostages as shields. I am encouraging people to not shoot through the hostages to get to the bad guy behind them.

Imagine if Hamas was shooting rockets from within an Israeli home or hospital, do you think the Israeli army would be so quick to bomb it? So why then is it ok to bomb a Palestinean home or hospital, is it because those hostages are not considered as valuable?

What you mean is that Israel doesn't consider what is 'currently' Gaza to be its own terriitory -- but that its own territory expands inch by inch at the crest of a bulldozer, and that any 'living beings' within that expansion ought to move to Gaza or die. Is that what you mean?

I certainly agree more that Iran is far, very far from a role model when it come to democracy and human rights. Then again one can question whether a nation where in many places women face increasing obstacles in getting an abortion, executes mentally handicapped, detain people for over a decade charges and engage in extraordinary rendition is that good of a role model either.

Show me another country in the region that has a single Jew or Christian in office.

You mean like Lebanon, Israel's neighbor to the north?

From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
"High-ranking offices are reserved for members of specific religious groups. The President, for example, has to be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, the Speaker of the Parliament a Shi’a Muslim, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Deputy Speaker of Parliament Eastern Orthodox....

"Lebanon's national legislature is the unicameral Parliament of Lebanon. Its 128 seats are divided equally between Christians and Muslims, proportionately between the 18 different denominations and proportionately between its 26 regions."

I wouldn't say that government-by-religious-and-ethnic-quota is necessarily a great way to go, but it does provide diversity.

I did some quick googling, I'm sure there is controversy over some of these numbers:

Number of Knesset members: 120 [wikipedia.org]
Number of current Arab Knesset members: 12 [wikipedia.org] or 10%
Number of Israelis: 8 million [wikipedia.org]
Number of Palestinians: 4.4 million

Given that Israel rules Palestine, that really doesn't meet my definition of democracy. As an American I'm sure I'd have problems with an Islamic Israel, but we tell ourselves we value democracy and freedom above all else. Furthermore, I can't imagine the current course will end up better.

"Undue influence" is quite an understatement. Israel doesn't allow Palestinians to leave, and prevents anyone it can from entering. They're not allowed to import anything aside from life-sustaining rations Israel approves of. Israel did all it could to prevent Palestinians from voting for who they wanted to in their own elections. They're not allowed to have an army. Israel encourages extremists to take Palestinian territory with force. On top of that, Israel is attacking Palestine in an extremely one-sided conflict.

Aside from the freedom to reproduce, there doesn't seem to be much that Israel doesn't attempt to control about Palestinian life.

"Not that I approve of Israel's bombing of their own citizens" - Israel never bombed their own citizens, you probably mean Hamas. In fact, Israel developed high-end technology to protect its citizens from rockets.

"who happen to not have the right to free travel, economic independence, the vote, or other important aspects we might consider important to a self-declared modern liberal democracy" - Israeli citizens has all the rights that Americans have. That includes everything on your list, and it also app

Those people have lived within the territorial boundaries their whole lives.

So? The "boundaries" have Israel on one of the sides — why aren't you claiming them to be citizens of Jordan and Egypt? At least, those two neighbors actually once occupied [umb.edu] the entire West Bank and Gaza respectively — for twenty years...

The Israeli government is being run by far-right reactionaries

Israeli government has changed many times since the country's establishment — swinging from Left to Right and anything in between. Never once have PLO or Hamas changed their official goal of destroying Israel [fas.org].

but that won't make it any less true.

Nothing your wrote is true — except for the obvious fact, that downmodding will not make it any less so.

Your rhetoric would carry a little more weight if there hadn't been a systematic attempt to destroy Israel since the year it was formed by the UN.

If your neighbor is constantly firing rockets into your country, targeting civilians, you might see things a little differently. If the Palestinians didn't have weapons, there would be peace. If Israel didn't have weapons, there would be no Israel. The "annexed" territory was land captured as the result of war of aggression started against Israel. In any other situation, people would recognize this, but it seems that anti-semitism is still deeply ingrained in the popular consciousness, especially on the Left.

Regardless of whether they sometimes go over the line in defending themselves, there's no denying that this situation was not started by and is not perpetuated by Israel. The "Palestinian" problem would disappear overnight if one of the many Muslim countries in the area would allow them to relocate. Israel didn't create itself. It was created by the UN, one of the very few useful things the UN ever did, and has fought several wars initiated by neighbors to defend its territory. But no one ever seems to care that the country is surrounded by a large number of people who are dedicated to its annihilation and the world seems to put people with this intent on the same moral level as a people who are simply trying to maintain their security. It's kind of hard to negotiate in good faith with people whose charter declares that their goal is to drive you into the sea.

The real "Palestinian" problem is that the Palestinians are pawns in a propaganda war against the Jewish people, and the world has been falling for this transparent trick for 70 years.

I'm old enough to remember Nasser and the 7-day war, and Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon [wikipedia.org] and the resulting mess it caused, even to this day. For forty years I've been shaking my head at Israeli intransigence. Eventually, maybe someone will come forward in Israel who realizes that "give us everything WE want up front, and then we'd perhaps be willing to sit down and talk about and maybe even consider what YOU want" isn't really an effective first-offer negotiating position.

I will cheerfully admit that Israel has a right to exist, and to defend itself. However, it seems that every time they "go over the line defending themselves" they end up occupying territory that didn't formerly belong to them, and never leaving, which only further exacerbates an already powder-keg situation.

I'll also cheerfully admit that everyone in that part of the world is fucking nuts, driven by religious extremism and centuries-old resentments, and completely immune to reason or compromise.

The real "Israeli" problem is the propaganda war that conflates the Israeli government and the Jewish people, and the world has been falling for this transparent trick for 70 years.

Do you also remember Nasser saying things like “Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel." and "We will not accept any coexistence with Israel" and ordering the UN peacekeepers out of the way? And moving troops and tanks up to Israel's southern border?

Let's imagine your neighbor spends his days sitting on his porch steps, polishing his guns and cursing at you and your family every time he sees you. Well, that's his right, free speech, his property, yadda yadda. Then he starts pointing his gun at you and your family while he talks about how much he'd like to kill all of you. In the US there should be *some* kind of civil action one could take, but countries don't answer to policemen, so let's assume you can't call anyone. How tenable would you find this situation?

The people in Gaza are not Israeli citizens.Israel does not control the civilian population in Gaza since it withdrew out of the Gaza strip in 2005.

Since I'm sure you'll mention the naval blockade, So for your information, the blockade was enacted in June 2007, when the Palestinians elected a terrorist organization (Hamas) to lead them, and started firing rockets in to Israel.

Btw, right after their election, Hamas eradicated PLO members from the Gaza strip (which were *relatively* moderate muslims), through

And yet Israel insists on controlling the territory. They may not get a vote but they ARE Israeli citizens until such time as Israel actually stops trying to control their political processes and truly leaves. Israel conquered the territory, they control what goes in or out and they fairly regularly send their military in. Even the maps show Gaza as a part of Israel. What they have done is to conquer a territory full of people who don't like Israel and never made a secret of that and then treated them badly for a long time. Shocking why things have gone badly.

Since I'm sure you'll mention the naval blockade, So for your information, the blockade was enacted in June 2007, when the Palestinians elected a terrorist organization (Hamas) to lead them, and started firing rockets in to Israel. Btw, right after their election, Hamas eradicated PLO members from the Gaza strip (which were *relatively* moderate muslims), through a series of violent clashes.

Yep, both sides are doing all sorts of evil things to each other. That's what happens in a civil war. Ever consider that a big part of the reason Hamas has such a large voice is because of the decades of stupid decisions by Israel? I totally get that Israel is a bit touchy given that they are surrounded by neighboring nations who have to put it mildly been quite hostile. But this is a conflict that will NEVER be won with bullets or walls. It will be won with cooperation and discussion and genuine caring about others.

They're not "Israeli citizens" but Israel doesn't want them to be "Palestine" citizens either. that is the entire problem/conflict in it's simplicity at this point.

They're effectively stateless and effectively without human rights in eyes of the Israeli state - and Israel jews have absolutely zero intent to integrate them into the Israeli state but they don't want them to live where they live either(and many who get voices in the Israeli media have the opinion that they shouldn't live at all, anywhere! and

"The time(16) will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: 0 Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad(17), which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim)(18)."

"Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies I

I've seen Israel do things for the benefit of Palestinian citizens that Hamas refuses to do.

Indeed, like when Israel built Gaza's first and only airport in the late 90's only to have it demolished by Hamas 4 years later. Oh! right it was the other way around. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y... [wikipedia.org] But of course that is not a bad thing as the airport now is a valuable resource for hard to get by construction materials for the rebuilding of other structures./sarcasm

Hamas started it and reuses to agree to any proposed cease fire. Israel isn't the group calling for the extermination, Hamas is. Israel has also offered legitimacy to the Palestinian government in exchange for a cease fire and removing the language in the charter to kill all jews.

It is more to do with proportional response. Those rockets they have killed what 2 or 3? there are over 1000 Palestinians dead.
You also have to consider that the Palestinian people as a whole are not Hamas, in the same way the Northern Ireland population were not the IRA. The UK did not resort to carpet shelling Northern Ireland to remove the IRA, because it would never have worked, the IRA would only get stronger. Ireland had segregation, it did not work, only by integrating the people can you bring them around and ultimately onto the same side.
For every innocent non-terrorist killed, that will recruit many terrorists.

A comparison with the IRA has its limitations: The IRA mission statement was not the destruction of the entire UK.The last time the existence of the UK was threatened, it actually did attempt to continuously bomb its enemies.

What do you mean, "proportional response"? The kids in Gaza keep on lobbing rockets until Israel says "enough is enough". And then the kids go "whaaaaa Israel is meeeeaaaaan to uuuuus". And hey, it's working, for lots of people are buying the marketeering. Because nobody could kill themselves just for a bit of good press, now could they? Just like nobody would willingly blow themselves up to make a political statement. Oh wait....

If you actually go look at what they do, you might note that Israel sends both phoned warning and a "knock on the roof" before a strike (does hamas phone ahead where they're going to strike? well?) only to find the roof full of civilians right after the warning. In contrast, the rockets hamas sends get picked up and word gets sent out to the target so that the Israelis can find shelter, and they do.

So I really do think that comparing casualty numbers here, when they're competently kept low by Israel and intentionally driven up by hamas, and yes they're deliberately trying to get their own killed for the press value, is a little disingenious. Unless you don't mind parrotting Hamas propaganda. Because that is what it is: Propaganda, very very bloodily so.

The whole reason Hamas runs Gaza is because Palestinians elected them, and subsequent infighting resulted in the largely Hamas loyal Gazans ousting Fatah and pushing them to the West Bank, or just outright killing them.

So it's a bit of a cop out to pretend that civilians in Gaza can't be blamed for Hamas - they can, they voted for them, and they supported the ousting of the far more moderate and reasonable Fatah, those who supported Fatah were killed or fled to the West Bank.

So Palestinians in Gaza share an awful lot of the blame for Hamas is actions - they actively create and support the environment in which Hamas can do what it keeps doing.

Which isn't to say I support Israel either, their provocations such as arbitrary raids and continued provocative settlement building and land seizure in the West Bank where Palestinians are more moderate and are behaving is just asking to cause trouble too, but let's not pretend that Gazans are largely innocent, sorry to Godwin the argument, but they're ultimately no more innocent than the Germans in the 30s who voted for and support the National Socialists. If you vote for extremists you have to take responsibility for and accept the repercussions of doing so.

So it's a bit of a cop out to pretend that civilians in Gaza can't be blamed for Hamas - they can, they voted for them, and they supported the ousting of the far more moderate and reasonable Fatah, those who supported Fatah were killed or fled to the West Bank.

Hamas won the election with only 44.45% of the popular vote, with about 25% of the eligible population abstaining (Palestinian legislative election, 2006 [wikipedia.org]). You're blaming all Palestinians for a choice made by less than half of the voters, which is hardly fair. Those who voted against Hamas aren't to blame for the actions of Hamas just because they were unfortunate enough to be on the losing side of the election. On top of that, the way Hamas has dealt with Fatah supporters means that even some of the 44.45% who voted for Hamas could reasonably be considered to be under duress.

44.45% of the popular vote, with about 25% of the eligible population abstaining

Reminder: 75% turnout is really rather good: it beats the UK turnout rates [parliament.uk][PDF warning]. Also, 44.5% of the voters is a huge number. To imply that anything less than 50% makes it illegitimate is just stupid: thankfully, not all countries are stuck with a two-party system.

No, the elections were deemed to be free and fair (well actually there was a bit of interference, but it was by the Israelis to try and cut the Hamas vote), which was actually quite a headache for the west at the time because whilst the US et. al. were crying for democracy it led to a result that they just did not want.

As for the result, try reading my post again you seem to have completely glossed over the point I made. You cannot simply take the popular vote and spread it evenly between the West Bank and Gaza. Whilst the overall vote may well have been 44% in favour of Hamas, that doesn't equate to 44% in the West Bank, and 44% in Gaza - that's a gross statistical misunderstanding. Given roughly equal population numbers (they're not too dissimilar) between Gaza and the West Bank you can have a result whereby the overall popular vote is 44% whilst 88% of Gazans support Hamas and 0% of Palestinians in the West Bank. Hopefully this example clears up your inability to understand why that overall figure gives a misleading layout of support for Hamas in Gaza.

Gaza is the Hamas heartland and there's where the majority of their support comes from. This is precisely why Hamas was able to swiftly kick (or kill) Fatah and it's supporters out of Gaza in 2007.

Hamas took over Gaza so rapidly in 2007 precisely because it enjoys massive popular support there and because it gained a massive democratic mandate there (and overall).

Your perception of proportional is just an opinion, an opinion based on an oversimplification of events.

Hamas calls for Israels destruction. If given their way, they would commit genocide on every Israeli out there. They get rockets from Iran and Sudan smuggled through the Sinai in order to attack Israel. The rockets have no chance of ever doing serious damage to Israel, they are a terror weapon. Their purpose is to cause fear and panic in the Israeli population to disrupt the Israeli government. When fired, the Israeli government has no choice but to respond and try to destroy the launchers and shut down the tunnels.

Specifically, Hamas places the launchers of these rockets in heavily urbanized areas, next to schools, hospitals, and other civilians. Their aim is to have the launcher destroyed but cause significant civilian casualties amongst their own people in order to get people like you around the world inflamed against Israel and turn public opinion away. Specifically they're looking for the global Muslim public opinion, as it makes them viewed as the victim and Israel the heartless monster, which brings more foreign fighters to support them and encourages foreign support from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the various emirates.

So when you say 2-3 vs 1000 you are completely oversimplifying the situation. Israel has conducted a very limited ground operation with the objective of wiping out smuggling tunnels; they are not indiscriminately shelling Gaza population centers. Their airstrikes are targeting the launchers but invariably there will be misses, and because Hamas uses it's own people as sacrificial lambs and bullet shields, there will inevitably be large civilian casualties.

But, you know, just gloss over that. Just gloss over the fact that Hamas is now the legitimate ruling party of a sovereign Palestinian nation, and yet violates the Geneva Conventions on a regular basis. They build tunnels into Israel to smuggle in operatives to conduct kidnappings and murders and suicide bombings. They acquire long range artillery, place it in their own population centers to use their own people as shields, adn then use them to target civilian population centers. Their fighters bear no markings, no uniforms or even a badge of sorts to identify them as such. But yeah, because Israel constantly has it's territory violated, it's people killed, and it's cities attacked with rockets that their response is somehow the aggressor here. The only reason the death toll is so lopsided is because of the capabilities and discipline differences between the two, but if this were an even fight you'd be seeing more like 1 million dead Israelis. Intent of the aggressors matters more than capabilities.

there had earlier been "firing around the compound" and his organisation had asked the Israeli army for time to evacuate civilians. "We spent much of the day trying to negotiate or to coordinate a window so that civilians, including our staff, could leave. That was never granted and the consequences of that appear to be tragic." Gunness said the Israeli military were supplied with coordinates of UN schools where those displaced were sheltering. UN sources told the Guardian a call was placed to the Israeli military at 10.55am requesting permission to evacuate but their call was not returned.

And as most of us know that ended with 15 civilians killed and over 200 injured, many severely so.

Poor analogy. Hamas has been trying very, very hard to kill lots and lots of civilians. They're just not very good at it but something will get through eventually.
A better analogy is if that schoolyard bully keeps shooting at your house with a 22, but so far you've stayed away from the windows and your dog has kept him out of the yard. It's still not a way to live and you are under no obligation to endure it for more than... I don't know, five years?
And then yes, you are completely welcome to go burn the guy's house down. Knock on the door, politely ask his parents to leave, text them, call them, leave a note, and then fire a warning shot. But yes, you can burn his house down and kill him. Because he has been trying extremely hard to kill you.

Perhaps you should read other propaganda than you normal intake and see what other parts of the world is thinking.

Right now Israel is facing a lot of problems, it seems like they very well knew that Hamas in fact did *not* sanction the kidnappings; also Israel seems to have left out important informations regarding the kidnapping in order to step up the conflict with Hamas.

Perhaps you should read other propaganda than you normal intake and see what other parts of the world is thinking.

Right now Israel is facing a lot of problems, it seems like they very well knew that Hamas in fact did *not* sanction the kidnappings; also Israel seems to have left out important informations regarding the kidnapping in order to step up the conflict with Hamas.

Quite so. And furthermore, rather than doing the normal criminal investigation thing (collect evidence, arrest likely suspects, bring them to trial, etc), Israel decided that they "just knew" who did it and sent the Israeli Airforce in to flatten their neighbourhood. Israel was very quick to jump on the bandwagon of George W. Bush's "war on terror"; label all your enemies as terrorists and use that to justify whatever you do to them.

To put that in some context, how would the international community have reacted if the British government (during the Irish "troubles") had sent the RAF to bomb neighbourhoods in Belfast or Derry because "we think there are some terrorists there"? It wasn't acceptable then and it's not acceptable now.

Your description does not correspond to the facts. Initially, they were seeking for the three kidnapped young men to save them. It is only 20 days later the bodies were found left by the killers in an open field. In the operation to find the kidnappers, many weapons caches were found and a weapon manufacture lab was uncovered in the operation and many arrests are related to these. The kidnappers were identified within 24 hours and it is partly because they were they left the bodies in an open field instead of negociating the return to their families. The Hamas is linked to the kidnappers even if some people are saying they are members of a more radical faction. The reality is the Hamas is supporting this more radical faction as well.

Hamas started it and reuses to agree to any proposed cease fire. Israel isn't the group calling for the extermination, Hamas is. Israel has also offered legitimacy to the Palestinian government in exchange for a cease fire and removing the language in the charter to kill all jews.

But yeah, go ahead and blame Israel.

Blah, blah, blah. These two will not stop until one or the other is eliminated from the face of the earth.

Both sides spout off the terrible things the other side is doing to them. And have no intention of ever stopping. My guess is this came down to someone stole someone's goats thousands of years ago, and it's been Hatfield and McCoys - Middle Eastern division - ever since

Because any time it looks like some calm, one or the other side starts screwing with the other.

If the Israelis are carrying out an extermination campaign they're not doing a very good job. So far they've killed 1065 Palestinians out of 1.816 million in the Gaza Strip, so that's like 0.06%. They've been at it for 22 days, if they kept this pace continually they'd kill just under 1% per year which is lower than the population growth rate. Unless they seriously step up their game the Palestinians are in no danger of extinction.

Or perhaps we could just acknowledge that Hamas is deliberately siting their weapons near civilians in order to increase the collateral damage of Israeli strikes. Frankly I think the Israelis are being pretty restrained given the scope of the problem. I can guarantee you that if the Mexicans were lobbing rockets into El Paso, Texas we'd be lighting them up like the 4th of July. (No offense to the Mexican people who for the most part would rather move here than lob rockets at us).

It's like watching your 2 drunken uncles accuse each other of stealing too much whiskey. At first you defend the one because you saw him steel the whiskey, then you realize the others been sneaking it to. Now they're in a full brawl on the living room floor in the middle of Christmas dinner, their kids (your cousins) are terrified and rooting for their respective fathers and you realize in 20 years those kids will be on this very same floor, having the same brawl, and all you can do is stand back and wonder why life is so screwed up.

in exchange for a cease fire and removing the language in the charter to kill all jew

You can't remove that which doesn't exist. Hamas' charter includes language that identifies the dismantlement of the state of Israel as a goal, but nothing about killing all Jews. In fact, let's take a look at the text of the charter, and more specifically any instance of the word "kill":

From Article Seven: The Universality of Hamas:

The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim).

A quote from Mohammed. No value judgement made. On its own, a statement of fact (assuming Mohammed did actually say these things). No incitating to kill Jews, let alone all Jews.

From Article Fifteen: The Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine is an Individual Obligation:

We must imprint on the minds of generations of Muslims that the Palestinian problem is a religious one, to be dealt with on this premise. It includes Islamic holy sites such as the Aqsa Mosque, which is inexorably linked to the Holy Mosque as long as the Heaven and earth will exist, to the journey of the Messenger of Allah, be Allah’s peace and blessing upon him, to it, and to his ascension from it. “Dwelling one day in the Path of Allah is better than the entire world and everything that exists in it. The place of the whip of one among you in Paradise is better than the entire world and everything that exists in it. [God’s] worshiper’s going and coming in the Path of Allah is better than the entire world and everything that exists in it.” (Told by Bukhari, Muslim Tirmidhi and Ibn Maja) I swear by that who holds in His Hands the Soul of Muhammad! I indeed wish to go to war for the sake of Allah! I will assault and kill, assault and kill, assault and kill (told by Bukhari and Muslim).

A call to regain control of Muslim holy sites by violent means. While I personally am no fan of holy wars, one would have to be rather obtuse to mistake this for a call for genocide.

From Article Twenty: Social Solidarity:

The Nazism of the Jews does not skip women and children, it scares everyone. They make war against people’s livelihood, plunder their moneys and threaten their honor. In their horrible actions they mistreat people like the most horrendous war criminals. Exiling people from their country is another way of killing them. As we face this misconduct, we have no escape from establishing social solidarity among the people, from confronting the enemy as one solid body, so that if one organ is hurt the rest of the body will respond with alertness and fervor.

A denouncement of Jews and their treatment of their Arab neighbors. No call for violence here either.

So it seems that Israel has offered legitimacy to the Palestinian government in exchange for removal from the Hamas charter language which doesn't exist. Should we be surprised that this "offer" hasn't led to any meaningful reconciliation or normalization of relations?

Now, once you understand that there is no language that calls for the killing of all Jews, you can focus on less inflamatory (but more productive) objections to the charter. Perhaps the part "Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors" bothers you. Indeed, this too is a call to violence, a call to destroy the state of Israel. However, this is no different than Israel's stated aim of destroying Hamas. It's a violent political goal, but that's not the same thing as genocide. If Israel is justified in calling for the destruction of Hamas, Hamas is equally justified in calling for the destruction of Israel (which, I feel compelled to remind you, is not the same as calling for the killing of all Jews, any more than calling for the destruction of Hamas is the same as calling for the killing of all Palestinians).

If you can't see the difference between opposing a political entity and genocide, then I suppose you would say that Israel is engaging in genocide regarding the current conflict? No? Oh, how impartial of you.

I have no horse in this race and feel that the world would be better off if the entire Arabian tectonic plate were to be rapidly subducted.

However, posts like yours illustrate how cheerleaders on both sides, incapable of even an attempt at objectivity, are the main obstacle to achieving a lasting

Leaving your pitiful strawman response aside, the point is as follows:

You cannot pretend to not incite genocide if you're quoting a guy who IS inciting genocide.

While quoting does not always imply that the author agrees, in this particular case it does. By quoting a prophet, who by definition speaks God's word, they are effectively saying "Do what he says!", even if they don't make a clear statement agreeing with him.

If you quote something and do not argue against it, you are siding with the quoted material.

Doesn't matter who started it. That's an argument that children make to justify their own bad behavior. There is no innocent party here.

Israel isn't the group calling for the extermination, Hamas is.

Israel has turned Gaza into a large open air prison. Many people in Gaza are innocent of any criminal action and yet they are made to suffer along with the terrorists. Israel will not give any voice in government to anyone who is not Jewish. Israel is not remotely being a fair minded party here. They conquered this territory and haven't done a good job of winning hea

If they stopped building settlements; stopped dissecting the West Bank for the settler's safety and actually acted like they were interested in a two state solution, that'd be pretty good.

Few sane people are criticising Israel's right and necessity to defend its citizens (although the way they're going about it is certainly fair game) - where it appears most critics (including myself) have a problem is in that subset of Israelis who oppose peace and (especially through the settlements) do everything possible to obstruct it - and have been controlling the government in recent years. Hamas's behaviour is indefensible. But unprovoked it is not, and for the Israeli government to play the innocent in this is just taking the piss.

TL;DR As history proves, violence without a political dimension only begets more violence.

So what do you think should Palestine's response to the constant checkpoints, blockading of their ports, airport and border crossings, as well as the occupation and continued confiscation of their land by Israel should be?

I ask you the same and if you would come to the conclusion that randomly firing rockets on Isreal and demanding the death of all Jews is the rational reaction that has a very good chance of bringing prosperity and happiness to the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, I am very much interested in

"So what do you think should Palestine's response to the constant checkpoints, blockading of their ports, airport and border crossings, as well as the occupation and continued confiscation of their land by Israel should be? "

Whatever it should be, launching rocket strikes on civilian population centres is most definitely not it.

Yes the way Israel treats Gaza is wholly unacceptable, but Gazans should take a leaf from the book of those in the West Bank and focus on peaceful resistance. That gives them the moral high ground.

It's worth bearing in mind that part the reason Gaza is so heavily blockaded right now is because Hamas was also attacking Egyptian soldiers in support of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood's violent resistance to it's overthrow forcing Egypt to shut Gaza's southern borders. If Gazans were simply sticking to peaceful protest then whatever the Israel do to blockade them the Egyptians would be letting food and supplies in right now. There are two borders in and out of Gaza and Gazans have successfully pissed off those controlling both of them with violence.

Gazans have made enemies with both their neighbours with persistent violent action and that's led to their isolation. Their isolation has become their excuse to start being even more violent which has now led to destruction of their infrastructure and widespread suffering.

For all the wrongs of the Israeli and Egyptian regimes it should be blindingly obvious to Gazans by now that the response to oppression by their enemies most definitely isn't aggression if they actually want to improve their lives.

The only reason Israel can get away with attacking Gaza in the first place is because there's substantial military infrastructure to attack. If Gazans disarmed then Israel would have absolutely no grounds to strike it - just like Israel does not strike Palestinians in the West Bank precisely because Palestinians there have learnt that non-violent opposition is a far better starting point for improving your situation.

Gaza has been occupied since 1967. No boats, other than the Free Gaza floatillas, have landed in Gaza since 1967. Hamas wasn't created until 1987, after twenty years of occupation in Gaza and forty years after half of Gaza's population was expelled from Israel for not being Jewish. Just because Israel's troops have redeployed to the border doesn't mean that Gaza isn't occupied since the current regime is just a continuation of what has been going on continuously for almost 50 years. Israel still possess

The government is right wing and, like GWB gets more votes when there is a war on. The more people are hurt or killed on both sides the more people want war so it feeds on itself and the government has a better chance of staying in power and enriching selves, friends and political allies.

Israel was quite restrained when governed by parties that did not benefit from additional violence.

You would think lives > votes but certainly the US and Israel strongly disagree. I'd be curious how many western

It will also likely cause the bombs to kill more people. A lack of power will cause people to leave their homes and try to find somewhere that has clean water or air conditioning, which means a higher density of people packed into a smaller area. This means higher death counts when Israeli missiles inevitably hit another civilian area, as they've been doing since the start of this war.

No, a war crime is intentionally targeting a civilian population, such as launching explosives at population centers. It is not a war crime to strike at a launch site or munitions depot. I'm not sure if it's a war crime to establish that site or depot inside a school (twice so far according to the UN, who is not exactly motivated to care), or inside a mosque (once, to my knowledge) or inside a home (dozens of them.)
But when you need to stop the war crimes and destroy a launch site, what do you do to limit civilian casualties? Warn them every way possible and then limit fire, which is precisely what Israel has done. What Hamas has done in turn is herd civilians into the line of fire. Should Israel hold their fire? Are they obligated to shelter Hamas' civilians in addition to their own?
You're welcome to dispute this. There is ample footage of Israeli warnings followed by civilians crowding the rooftops. Just as there is footage of gunmen turning fleeing civilians back into targeted areas, and two UN reports prior to this war of Hamas using child labor (160 dead) to dig their tunnels.
This is not Dresden. Realize that this is what war looks like when when side uses restraint but must proceed, and the other side caulks the gaps with bodies.

That is the point of the blockade isn't it? Getting Gaza to capitulate and figure out it does not hold the upper hand. They are perfectly capable of leveling Gaza and frankly have more than enough reason to do so. They want a neighbor that will not attack them and will work aggressively to stop terrorist from doing the same. The Gazans are free to elect somebody that is willing to and can do just that or hit there current people with enough cluebats to make it happen.

This one seems to be caused by a tiny percentage of assholes on both sides. Peace will never be in the assholes' best interest as it will reduce the amount of control the assholes have over their populations. Dozens of times during my lifetime peace has been within reach, only to be shattered by some asshole on one side or the other. Until such time as leaders arise on both sides who are interested and committed to a peaceful solution, this situation will not change.

Please, someone explain to me how seemingly rational and normal people who seem to have it all together and seemingly hold a good sum of beliefs that can be called measured and critical can demonize Israel for defending themselves...in an amazingly measured manner I must say...in a lion's den of homicidal and genocidal area of the world against a people who will accept nothing but their destruction (it's in their charter or something) when all these other dudes (who happen to be a designated terrorist organization) by NATO..I think, at least by the US)...and.......you know what, fuck it. People who complain about Israel and make martyrs out of HAMAS are truly fucking deluded or stupid.

If you read this thread, there is rarely support for Hamas. But not that doesn't sanction the killing of children or shelling schools by Israel. The citizens there can't leave basic necessities like concrete to build houses or basic foodstuffs like fruit are blockaded.

People have the right to complain about abuses on both sides. Either way the only things coming out of the current conflict right now is suffering of innocent children. Both sides should be ashamed.

Trying to blame Israel for very real world-wide problem of Muslim-on-neighbor violence is missing the root cause.
The Palestinians and most Muslims have been taught from age zero to hate the Jews because of the lunatic ravings of their "prophet." Their Qur'an is filled with war tactics and how to treat the enemy, which is everyone who doesn't believe in their god. And the vast majority of Muslims believe in Sharia law that enforces these barbaric 8th century laws. Browse thereligionofpeace.com for a few insights into the real source of the problem.

Over at the Wall Street Journal Bret Stephens questions the claim that as many as 1,023 Palestinian lives have been lost in the conflict. The column [wsj.com] is paywalled but can be accessed for free via the WSJ Opinion Facebook Page. [facebook.com]

Consider the media obsession with the body count. According to a daily tally in the New York Times, NYT -6.42% as of July 27 the war in Gaza had claimed 1,023 Palestinian lives as against 46 Israelis. How does the Times keep such an accurate count of Palestinian deaths? A footnote discloses "Palestinian death tallies are provided by the Palestinian Health Ministry and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs."

OK. So who runs the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza? Hamas does. As for the U.N., it gets its data mainly from two Palestinian agitprop NGOs, one of which, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, offers the remarkably precise statistic that, as of July 27, exactly 82% of deaths in Gaza have been civilians. Curiously, during the 2008-09 Gaza war, the center also reported an 82% civilian casualty rate.

When minutely exact statistics are provided in chaotic circumstances, it suggests the statistics are garbage. When a news organization relies—without clarification—on data provided by a bureaucratic organ of a terrorist organization, there's something wrong there, too.

Several important facts are missing from the summary. The only correct one is that, yes, Gaza's only power plant has been attacked.

However:1. The effect of this power plant being out of commission is relatively minor. Gaza receives most of its electricity (and water), whether in war or peace, from, guess who - Israel. And no, they don't pay their bills (their debt is around $500 million). In fact the bizarre and twisted reality in the Middle East today is that the Israeli taxpayer is funding electricity for the enemy's rocket manufacturers.2. The Israeli army has denied firing anywhere near the power plant and there is a high probability that the attack was a misfired Hamas rocket or mortar bomb, similar to other recent cases where Hamas rockets have killed Gazans.3. About 50,000 Gazans have already been in a blackout for a couple of weeks since a Hamas rocket fell near one of the power lines supplying Gaza with electricity from Israel. The Israeli Electric Company will not risk its technicians' lives to repair this line while under enemy fire, thank you very much.

Obviously we do. Is there some magical threshold of people calling out wrongdoings that would be sufficient for you?

I hate how ambiguous this kind of assertion is. As if there was some unspecified "they" keeping us from discussing it. I've been called an anti-semite for condemning this kind of bombing before, but that just represents one more thing that particular person was wrong about.

They see Israel as an outside force that periodically comes through town to kill everyone. They see Hamas as the only party willing and able to answer Israel's violence with some Palestinian violence. Whether or not that view of the situation accurately corresponds to reality is irrelevant; the fact of the matter is, the people of Gaza feel that in the current climate, Hamas represents their interests better than any of the other options.

Until the Israeli administration can find a way to change that perception (hint: continuation of the violence, marginalization, and blockage is unlikely to accomplish that goal), I expect continued support of Hamas and a continuation of desperate rocket attacks on Israel.

Also, I should point out that they (the people of Gaza) don't have voting rights. They used to. They voted in Hamas in free and fair elections. Of course, after Hamas consolidated power, they suspended further elections indefinitely. Hamas still enjoys widespread popular support in Gaza, but they'd be in power regardless, since elections are no longer held and there is no longer any democratic means of removing them from power.

Perhaps, if voting were the only way to establish whether or not popular support exists. Thankfully enough, some geniuses back in the day thought up this crazy idea called a non-binding "poll". Think of it as an election, but the results aren't used for anything other than publication.

Of course, even simple polls won't accurately gauge popular support for Hamas. Many external factors are at play here. For example, Hamas' popularity recently plummeted in a very serious way. Why? Because they stopped payin

Israel has killed almost 800 Palestinians in the past twenty-one days in the Gaza Strip alone; its onslaught continues. The UN estimates that more than 74 percent of those killed are civilians. That is to be expected in a population of 1.8 million where the number of Hamas members is approximately 15,000. Israel does not deny that it killed those Palestinians using modern aerial technology and precise weaponry courtesy of the world’s only superpower. In fact, it does not even deny that they are civilians.

Israel’s propaganda machine, however, insists that these Palestinians wanted to die (“culture of martyrdom [haaretz.com]”), staged their own death (“telegenically dead [forward.com]”) or were the tragic victims of Hamas’s use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes (“human shielding [abc.net.au]”). In all instances, the military power is blaming the victims for their own deaths, accusing them of devaluing life and attributing this disregard to cultural bankruptcy. In effect, Israel—along with uncritical mainstream media that unquestionably accept this discourse—dehumanizes Palestinians, deprives them even of their victimhood and legitimizes egregious human rights and legal violations.

This is not the first time. The gruesome images of decapitated children’s bodies and stolen innocence on Gaza’s shores are a dreadful repeat of Israel’s assault on Gaza in November 2012 and winter 2008–09. Not only are the military tactics the same but so too are the public relations efforts and the faulty legal arguments that underpin the attacks. Mainstream media news anchors [cnn.com] are inexplicably accepting these arguments as fact.

Below I address five of Israel’s recurring talking points. I hope this proves useful to newsmakers.

1) Israel is exercising its right to self-defense.

As the occupying power of the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Territories more broadly, Israel has an obligation and a duty [jadaliyya.com] to protect the civilians under its occupation. It governs by military and law enforcement authority to maintain order, protect itself and protect the civilian population under its occupation. It cannot simultaneously occupy the territory, thus usurping the self-governing powers that would otherwise belong to Palestinians, and declare war upon them. These contradictory policies (occupying a land and then declaring war on it) make the Palestinian population doubly vulnerable.

The precarious and unstable conditions in the Gaza Strip from which Palestinians suffer are Israel’s responsibility. Israel argues that it can invoke the right to self-defense [jadaliyya.com] under international law as defined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. The International Court of Justice, however, rejected this faulty legal interpretation in its 2004 Advisory Opinion [icj-cij.org]. The ICJ explained that an armed attack that would trigger Article 51 must be attributable to a sovereign state, but the armed attacks by Palestinians emerge from within Israel’s jurisdictional control. Israel does have the right to

Hamas is intentionally targeting civilians. It has publicly said so and (more importantly) done so for many decades now. They kidnap and murder Israeli civilians. They call for Israel's destruction without room for negotiation. There are plenty of video evidence proving this and on the other hand proving that Israel has aborted important military targets because of the presence of civilians. Hamas has released numerous videos praising their people for acting as human shields. So don't take our word for it. Take *their* word for it.

Your post simply shows how often international NGOs depend witnesses that later turn out to be Hamas members. NGOs have neither the time, funding or expertise to witness these events first-hand so they rely on Hamas members instead. When a rocket lands on a school and witnesses say it came from Israel, they don't have the necessary expertise to actually reach that conclusion. Hamas' own rockets have landed *inside* Gaza hundreds of times in the past two weeks. Do you honestly think none of these caused Gazan civilian deaths? And yet, the media hasn't reported once of such an event. Funny that, eh?

And yet somehow they cannot make the connection that the rockets that Hamas shoots into Israel by the hundreds brings that Israeli destruction to them.

Indeed, this is amusing. As amusing as the fact that Israel cannot make the connection that the destruction Israel brings to Gaza (along with the blockade, along with the refusal to recognize sovereignty, etc) is the reason (are the reasons?) Hamas shoots rockets into Israel.

I find it odd that Anti-Israel propagandists seem to expect that being under constant fire should not bring any reprisal.

I find it odd that Anti-Arab propagandists seem to expect that continued flaunting of international law and marginalization of a powerless people should not bring any reprisal. Face the facts. Israelis are a bloodthirsty lot. Just look at the frequency with which they initiate armed conflict with nearly any neighboring state. I'd compare numbers with your ISIS stats, but I'm afraid that Gaza is a tiny fraction of the size of the territory ISIS is operating in. If we looked at number of dead per day per square mile, you wouldn't be quite so quick to encourage these comparisons.

Also, thank you for appointing me an Anti-Israel propagandist. I hear dismissing people outright is a great way of winning them over in rational debate.

You realise that those rockets Hamas has it was probably getting for free, and those tunnels it built were actually the main way to get food and supplies into Gaza due to Israels blockade on imports, as they limited total food shipments to just 136 truck loads a day, for the entire Gaza population of 1.8million...

Hamas are far from blameless, but they also aren't anywhere near 100% of the problem.

If it's oiled wire, stored in oiled paper, it's actually meant for concrete work with re-bar, but is actually used most often to string low-charge electric fences. It is commonly used with horses in conjunction with white, vinyl warning fence. You get anywhere from 50-200 feet per spool.

Baling wire is substantially thicker, un-oiled, and comes in much larger spools; 500-1000 feet per spool.

The spools in oil paper are meant to be strung by hand and not intended to be used for tying anything long-term; hence the lighter gauge. In fact, it's meant to hold re-bar together long enough for the concrete to be poured, thereby securing the re-bar and negating the need for the wire. Baling wire is intended to be strung by machine, and exists mainly to tie things together for seasons (and hold together the entire Midwest's infrastructure). Square bales that use baling wire must be stored out of the elements, so the wire being un-oiled is not an issue.

To the GP: If you use baling twine, then your machinery sucks, sell that P.O.S. Oliver and buy something made in the last fifty years. I bet you run narrow base Allis-Chalmers too, don't you?